Deep Blue
by let-words-free-you
Summary: Ian O'Shea has long been twisted by hate--but can one of the very creatures who stole his family now steal his heart? Ian's side of the Host and what happened before Wanda came.
1. Prologue: Taken

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Stephenie Meyer novel "The Host," but I **_**do**_** own Sophie. Oh yes. **

_Taken_

Sophie O'Shea hurried through the cold, brisk wind that traditionally battered Seattle each winter. She was running so late on everything! Christmas was _tomorrow, _Kyle was driving in from Portland by noon, and Sophie still had to do her Christmas shopping.

Kyle and Ian were easy to buy for, she had gotten each of them polar-fleece sweaters designed especially for jogging in never-ending cold that came as part of the Life in the Northwest package deal. What with Kyle living in Portland and Ian going to the University of Washington here in Seattle, both of them would love the gifts.

But as for Mom and Dad, that was harder. And so Sophie had decided on a shamefully easy out--dinner reservations at their favorite seafood restaurant. The sort of mindless gift she would normally cringe to give. _Damn procrastination, _she thought, wrapping her coat a little tighter around her as she skirted a puddle on the sidewalk. Oh well, as a Junior at Bishop Blanchet High, she was a professional at procrastionation, and things always seemed to work out when it came to things such as last-minute presentations and papers...papers! She had one due on the day she got back from winter break.

Sophie pushed it from her mind, she fully intended to forget that school existed and enjoy Christmastime with the crazy O'Shea clan while she could. _No one _did crazy quite like the O'Sheas. Ian was coming over today to help mom throw her traditional Christmas Eve Party for the greater O'Shea and MacPherson family (complete with the traditional Irish open bar). This was an exciting christmas for Ian, it was the first year he could legally participate in the open bar, although he had been doing so at their mother's encouragement since the age of 19. And Kyle would get raging drunk, as usual, and lose money at poker to the MacPherson cousins while Ian avoided all the young, beautiful, single, and slobberingly intoxicated "family friends" Mom happened to invite to the party. Oh yes, Sophie loved Christmastime.

She glanced at her watch. She was running late to catch the bus she needed to catch to get to the waterfront! She rounded the corner and saw the bus waiting at the stop. She thoughtlessly ran into the street.

As she crossed the street, she suddenly heard a strange sound. Sophie turned in horror to see a car swerving towards her, hydroplaning across the wet road as it tried to stop. A smell of burnt rubber, a burning pain, a crunch as her head hit the ground, and then...nothing.

* * *

When Sophie awoke, she was on a bed in a strange, tiny room. Strange tubes and equipment hung everywhere. The room pitched to the side as the ambulance (for that is what Sophie's befuddled brain told her it must be) rounded a corner. Strange people in dark green outfits sat by her side.

"She's awake!" one yelled.

"Quick, put her under!"

Sophie tried to push away the hand that came towards her, holding a strange strip between its fingers. A face came towards her, the hand coaxing the strip into her mouth, the light from an overhead lamp reflecting in the person's eyes…like light off a mirror. Already Sophie felt sleep coming over her. She tried to focus, stay conscious…she couldn't stay…the last thing she saw were those eyes looking at her, those strange silver eyes…

* * *

The Healer looked at the sleeping girl. The host body had been healed to perfection after almost dying when a car hit her. Such an awful memory to wake to. The Healer's host had been saved from a car accident herself, so she could imagine what it would be like for the little soul, only on its second world. The soul had just come from the Mists Planet.

"It will be alright, though," the Healer, called Blooms Brightly, murmered to the sleeping soul. Such a pretty thing, dark hair and fair skin. Just then, the soul blinked, her shockingly blue eyes opening to this strange world for the first time.

"Am I really here?" she asked.

"Yes, you're here, Light Weaver. Welcome to Earth."


	2. Hidden

**Disclaimer: Don't own Ian or Kyle. I'm especially disappointed about the Ian part of that. I'll update as much as I can in the coming week, which may be rarely as I'm going in for finals. **

Nature's first green is gold,  
Her hardest hue to hold.  
Her early leaf's a flower;  
But only so an hour.  
Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
So Eden sank to grief,  
So dawn goes down to day.  
Nothing gold can stay.

-Robert Frost

_Hidden_

The residential street was lit by decorative streetlamps placed at intervals along the sidewalk, each one casting a yellow pool of light on the sidewalk. There was no one to be seen on the street at this dark hour of the night. I was crouching low, concealed behind and ornamental shrub, and Kyle stood in the shadows of a neighborhood playground for the littler parasites.

My eyes flicked over each of the houses on this street, searching for one with no lights left on and no car in the garage. I saw one, the eighth house down on this side of the road. I looked at Kyle and he nodded, he saw it too. I carefully backed away from my vantage point behind the shrub to the shadowy foot path that ran behind the houses.

This was a nice neighborhood, very clean and well-groomed. Everywhere was like that now, the buggers saw to it that even the former low-income neighborhoods were like a picture on a postcard.

This neighborhood looked like it had been obviously upscale even before the invasion. It was a gated community, although the gates were now kept wide-open by the trustful parasites. The houses were large and classic-looking, and leafy trees gave the place a certain ambience.

Buggers in this kind of neighborhood took regular vacations and stayed out late in the evenings, pointlessly living the privileged lifestyles of their predecessors. Any bugger could do that if they wanted, now that money had disappeared entirely, but these types seemed to spend nights out more often, which is why Kyle and I had chosen this neighborhood.

Kyle and I crept along the foot path, which was thankfully cemented. Gravel made a lot of noise. Making noise was one of the worst things you could do on a raid, Kyle and I didn't even talk to each other until we were safely in the house.

Privacy fences shielded the back yards of the houses from view, offering us protection from the eyes of anyone up for a midnight snack. I counted houses in my head until we reached the eighth one down. Quietly opening the latch on the gate, Kyle slipped into the back yard of our target, and I followed suit.

It was a large white house, without a lot of windows facing the back. Perfect. Harder for anyone passing by to see anything. We had only come into the city for a quick raid, but as Kyle slid open the sliding glass door (unlocked, of course) I noticed a large pile of unopened mail sitting on a table. The buggers must be on vacation! This night was getting better and better.

Now that we knew they weren't coming home any time soon (a calendar on the kitchen wall proclaimed the parasites return to be 3 weeks away) Kyle and I could take all the time we wanted. Heck, se could even stay the night, take showers and sleep in real beds for once. I knew Kyle would hate it, but the idea appealed to me. It was easier to stay in what Kyle called "enemy territory" when I thought about the fact that the humans who had lived here first would want us to stay, and leave the buggers a mess to clean up.

I was rummaging through the bathroom cabinet, looking for much needed supplies such as tooth paste and Tylenol, when Kyle called to me.

"Hey Ian, look at this!"

I walked over to the kitchen, where Kyle was stalking up on food. He stood, looking wickedly delighted, in front of an open freezer, filled with—

"Hell yes," I proclaimed, reaching for the mint chocolate-chip.


	3. Caught

Disclaimer: The Host and its characters are not mine

**Disclaimer: The Host and its characters are not mine. They are Stephenie Meyer's. Life sucks. And then you die. **

**I'm going to let you all know now, I'm drastically inconsistent, but now that my school is out for the summer (Oh happy day! What joy! Now, if only I didn't live in the Northwest, where June only means more 50 degree high temperatures and rain….), I hopefully can post with more frequency than I would have during the school year. I'm also going to try to make the chapters longer. This one may be kind of short though. I just came back from a week-long vacation, so I'm doing my best here….**

**Ghosts in the Snow: I love Ian too!! I have a hidden hope that Ian has a thick Irish accent to go along with the dark hair, baby blue eyes, and amazingness….**

**Goth.one: Thanks! I hope you like the rest. **

**Grl4Peace: Love your pen name. Yes, Sophie is Kyle and Ian's little sister. She's 17 in the prologue, and at that point Ian is 20 and Kyle is 23. Sophie's really cool in my head, but you probably won't hear too much more from her, sadly. **

**LadyPup: Thanks! I'm glad you like it. I don't write anywhere else, not yet at least. I'm feeling all light and fluffy now that you've asked though. : **

**Mistaken Nightmare13: I hope a Host section soon goes up soon, I feel strangely guilty about putting it in the Twilight section. I'm worried the FanFiction ninjas are going to hunt me down and kill me in my sleep or something. **

**Phoenixfire625: Thanks! When Ian comes to play in The Host, he's already a really complex character. I originally wanted to start the story on the day Wanda came, but then I started thinking of why Ian does what he does, and soon I had a whole backstory for each of them (Kyle and Ian). Voila! Sophie. Though she's gone (for the most part), Sophie still plays a huge part in who Kyle and Ian are. **

**SunDanceKid17: The O'Shea Family are my favorite people in the world! I certainly hope the story allows more room for me to talk about them, and I certainly hope I get to write more about Mrs. O'Shea. She rocks. **

**Thank you so much for all the alerts and favorites too! **

_Caught_

Kyle's fist pumped the air as the soccer team he had chosen to support scored a goal. "Take THAT, Ian!" he cried, jumping up on the couch and brandishing his spoon at me. "Hand over the Cherry Garcia, because your Goalie is too much of a wuss to actually defend his goal!" I sighed and handed him the pint of signature ice cream. My stomach clenched in anger as the Goalie congratulated the player from Kyle's team, patting him on the back. Sometimes, as you watched the game, you almost forgot the people playing had been taken over by parasites.

The parasites that lived here had a widescreen TV and leather couch in their basement. After Kyle and I had discovered and divided the hoard of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in the buggers' freezer, we found the door to the basement and flicked through the channels of parasite human-interest crap until we found a soccer game between Honduras and France. The US hadn't even qualified for the final tournament. Kyle had chosen to root for Honduras, and every time Honduras scored (twice now, which in professional soccer is somewhat rare. France was eating the turf.) I handed over Kyle's choice of ice cream flavors.

Suddenly, the Frenchasites went wild! The good ol' blue, white and red had scored. Well, well, I'd get my Cherry Garcia back. Allez les Bleus. Kyle looked at me with a warning in his eyes, curling himself protectively around the small tub of ice cream. He brandished his spoon at me in warning. I opened my mouth to make a snide comment, but closed it almost instantly, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. I had heard something upstairs.

Kyle noticed as my eyes flicked upwards. He silently reached for the remote and shut off the TV. As quietly as I could, I rose from the couch and crossed the basement towards the stairs. Pressing my back against the wall of the stairwell, I remembered what Josiah had taught us about pretending to be a part of your surroundings, the way he had taught us to walk when we needed to be silent.

I focused my mind backwards and down, against the wall and into my feet. I could feel my heartbeat slow as I entered the "invisible place" as Josiah had called it. In the invisible place, you could stand for hours without moving or move as silently and quickly as a shadow; you hardly even had to breathe. It had taken Kyle and I years to perfect the technique. It hadn't been enough to save Josiah, but Kyle and I had since learned other things, things Josiah would not teach us. Things that _would_ have saved him. Violent things. Ways to harm, and ways to kill. Josiah hadn't believed in violence. He would be ashamed of us.

Silently climbing the stairs, I edged my head around the corner of the wall that blocked the hallway from view. No one was there. Kyle crept past me towards the kitchen, where his supply-stuffed backpack lay, discarded on the floor. He disappeared around a corner. My backpack was still in the bathroom, at the end of the hallway. I crept down the hall, head swinging from side to side as I searched for the source of the noise we had heard.

A small decorative table stood at the end of the hall. A potted plant was lying on the floor, dirt scattered across the carpet. That explained the noise I had heard. Someone or something had been here. I lowered into a crouched stance and pushed open the bathroom door. A cat, with dark dirt all over its white coat, was pawing at my backpack. Its green eyes looked up at me accusingly as I came in.

I straightened up. "Kyle, it's just a—" my words stopped short as I felt the icy cold double barrels of a gun press into my back. I gasped in surprise.

"Well now," an unfamiliar, raspy male voice said. "I think we have got ourselves in a pickle."

**A/N: So that's how they met Jeb (if you needed me to tell you that, there's a problem here). I'll tell you more about this Josiah person later. There will also be a lot of flashbacks to the places they've been, and what happened to them in the past 5 years. **

**Also, I have no idea who's who when it comes to the World Cup, I chose France because I'm studying French, and for the other team's country, I just closed my eyes and spun a globe. Sorry if I messed things up horribly in some unknown way or offended any soccer fans. What can I say, I'm American, 20 of us still can't read. In comparison to, well, a hefty percentage of the world, we are officially whipped and sent home in the education department…but I did do my research. I learned that in professional soccer, it is rare to score more than 1 to 3 goals in a game. How about that? **


	4. Entrusted

**Disclaimer: The Host belongs to Stephenie Meyer. Although technically, I own a copy…**

**Okay, I know this story has been offline for a really long time….half a year or so. Yes, yes, I deserve to be strung against a rock and have copies of Breaking Dawn hurled at me (what else is it good for?) but I've been busy. Insanely busy. As in college physics over the summer, starting as a full scholarship kid at an elite private school in the fall, a twelve page paper on one of the most un…erm…writable? Whatever, unwritable authors in America…yeah. Excuses are excuses, but considering I hit crazy in October, mine are damn good. But, then I built up the need to write, and I got some really lovely reviews, and I remembered that I had a lot more to say about Ian. So, here goes. The title of the chapter is crap, but hey, it's a transition chapter. The good stuff is on the way. **

_Entrusted_

The truck raced along the highway at a breakneck speed. The sun would be rising soon, and Jeb said we had to be off the highway by then. That was the only clue he had given us about where we were going. Kyle sat in the small space to the back of the cab, a looming and dangerous presence. That was his job. I sat shotgun, brown furrowed, thinking and rethinking the situation as I stared at the blackness outside my window. Thinking, contemplating, planning: that was my job. Kyle has a mind of his own and is stubborn as a mule, but he ultimately depends on my conclusions. He tells me that it's because I overthink everything. That may be true, but it's gotten us out of more than a few scrapes before. I had decided to trust this stranger, for three reasons: 1) I've never seen a parasite even touch a weapon before, they go all shaky at even the smallest violence.

2) He left Kyle and I alone for a few minutes before we left the house, claiming he needed to use the bathroom, and disappearing for 10 minutes. We naturally used this time to consider his offer to join his community of 21 humans hidden in an undisclosed safe place. Once we had decided to go with him, we used his abnormally long bathroom break to formulate a plan of action if he started to take us anywhere we didn't want to go. Had we chosen to, this time also could have been used to bolt. No seeker would take the chance of losing his prey. He had left us alone, and thereby proved that he wasn't any type of super-seeker with the ability to touch a weapon and to lie.

3) He looked like Santa Claus. A weather-beaten, wrinkly Santa Claus. It was really, really hard not to trust him right away. In a very roundabout way of thinking, a real Seeker wouldn't look half so trustworthy and endearing, because the more trustworthy a person seems these days the less likely it is that they are. Any Seeker in disguise would have enough sense to look at least a little less like your favorite uncle. Anyone stupid enough to disguise themselves as Jeb wouldn't have even been able to find us in the first place. Flip that about on its tail and we can trust Jeb, because he looks so trustworthy and…nice. What a strange world it is.

And so here we were, thanks to a whacky string of logic. On an interstate highway in an old truck, with a man we didn't know, going to a place where we could supposedly find a permanent home. Home…I hadn't used that word for over 5 years to describe anywhere, not even when we were with Josiah. Having a home again would be….well, let's say amazing is an understatement.

I looked out at the window. We had left the city far behind, and for the past few hours had been racing through desert. At least I thought it was desert, the moonless night gave me little light to see by. A line of red was just beginning to creep along the horizon to my right, outlining jagged peaks I had not been able to see before. Suddenly, Jeb swerved to the side of the highway, slamming on the brakes. Kyle and I were thrown forward in our seats. Jeb put the truck in park and got out. I looked at Kyle, seeing the panic I felt reflected in his eyes. We hadn't expected this. What would he do now? Shoot us and bury us in the desert? Or worse, were we in the middle of a sea of parasites, ready to take us back and take over our bodies? I reached over and unbuckled my seatbelt, then put my hand on the door handle. If I was going down, I'd go down standing. Kyle was twisted around in his seat, narrating Jeb's actions.

"He's going to the back of the truck…he's getting something out of the back, I can't see what…damn, what's he doing? He's coming back, he's not holding anything." In spite of this narration, I jumped a little when Jeb reopened his door and got back in the truck.

"Calm down boys, just letting down the tarps to cover our tracks." I let out the breath that I had been holding, my fists loosening. My nails, bitten short, had still left little half moons on the skin of my palm. Now that I thought about it, that was very clever. I put it away in the store if ideas I kept for future use before I realized that, if Jeb was telling the truth about this safe place, I wouldn't need any those survival ideas any more.

Jeb put the car back in drive and turned off the shoulder-less highway into the open desert, now faintly illuminated by the first light of dawn. The tension I had been holding between my shoulder blades began to loosen, and I relaxed. Contemplate as much as I want, we would soon be good and truly lost in the middle of the desert. No going back now. I turned my eyes towards the red peaks in the distance, silhouetted by the rising sun.

**Vote: okay, so Ian's never loved anyone like he loves (or will love in the near future) Wanda. He's a Stephenie Meyer male, no SM guy can love twice unless they can't help it (imprinting). But, what do you think about someone in the cave falling for Ian when he shows up? Wanda's not coming for a year and a half, and I know how to get rid of this person should I choose to write her in…but should I? Opinions, please. **


	5. Welcomed

**Disclamer: In 300-some years, Stephenie Meyer's works, like Shakespeare, will be probably be public domain. Until then, she owns them, and I can only wish that I did….unless I live 300 years or go into cryogenic suspension. **

**See, nice and prompt. Next chapter. Among the cave inhabitants, there will be some unfamiliar names, mainly because SM only provided about 25 names in the book. So I get to make some people up…heck yeah. **

_Welcomed_

The sun was fully up and the sky was a brilliant blue when Jeb pulled the car into a dark recess hidden in a craggy hill, one of the many in the mountainous desert we had been driving through.

"Out of the car, boys, we've got to cover up the car before I introduce you to the gang." Kyle and I exchanged a glance, not of fear this time, but almost disbelief that what Jeb claimed was actually true. It was unbelievable to us that 21 people had actually survived, let alone that they had found each other. Before Jeb, Josiah was the only human we had met. Jeb grabbed a flashlight out of a safebox in the back of the truck, and helped us unloaded the supplies we had gathered from the house. We then helped him throw dirt-colored tarps over the truck. We stood back and observed our work. I couldn't help but feeling a little uneasy, anyone who looked too close even from the air might see it.

"We have a more permanent place to keep the truck. We have a sedan as well, and I normally take that out for quick supply runs like this, but it's on the fritz. Either of you boys a mechanic?" Kyle and I smiled; our father had loved rebuilding old cars. He taught all of his children, even…….even his daughter how they worked. I'd hotwired a few cars the past few years, but actually getting down and dirty in the motor of a car was something I hadn't done in a long time.

Jeb noticed our reaction and smiled his crinkly-eyed smile in return. "I'll take you with me when I drive it out to the hiding place this evening so you know where it is, and you can have a look at the sedan while you're there. But now I imagine you're excited to see the last of the human race. Come on." He flicked on the flashlight and we followed him into the black tunnel that continued into the hill.

The entrance to the tunnel was low, and I had to duck. Kyle didn't. His low cursing followed me through the darkness. The floor sloped suddenly down, and even with the light of the flashlight bobbing ahead of us, I stumbled on the rough ground.

"Steady there, little bro," Kyle jibed. Idiot. The treacherous downward slope continued for who knows how long. In the darkness, time seemed almost suspended. Almost as suddenly as it had dropped, the path evened out again, veered to the left, and sloped upwards. Before much longer, the path flattened once more. Now things got complicated. Tunnels branched off in every direction. Jeb took the second one, which led to another set of tunnels, and there he took the one on the right, and then another fork appeared. I tried to memorize the combination as we followed the twisting and turning path that Jeb took. In the distance, a faint light appeared, reflected on the wall of the cave. It grew stronger, and as we approached the source, I could hear the murmur of voices. More humans! Jeb wasn't lying after all. We rounded the last corner, and were at the end of our journey. A vast cavern opened up in front of us--daylight emanated from above us and temporarily blinding me. A group of people milled about in the cavern, ten or so. More humans than I'd ever thought I'd see again. There was a large dark square in the center of the cavern, where small green sprouts were shooting up. Most of the people, a women and men alike, were working there. Tunnels branched off in every direction, leading to even more wonders, I was sure. I looked up at the ceiling of the cavern, puzzled. Light poured from it, as it would from the sky. All this couldn't possibly be outside, they would have been caught by now. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could see the light was uneven, brighter in some places than in others. It must be coming from some sort of vent. I'd have to ask Jeb about that later.

Everyone in the cavern looked up as we came in. Looks of delight crossed their faces.

"New arrivals!" Jeb called. Everyone stopped what they were doing and rushed towards us, forming a throng of eager faces.

"This is Ian, and this is Kyle." Jeb indicated us as he spoke, introducing us to the beaming crowd. "Well, what are you waiting for! Introduce yourselves to them!" Kyle went around and started enthusiastically shaking hands. I'm not exactly the type for large displays of emotion, and don't really do well with new people either, and hung back. However, someone from the crowd approached me. She was a young woman, about my age. Pretty, too. She smiled brightly, holding her hand out to be shaken.

"I'm Ellen."

I took her hand. "Ian," I replied. Stupid, she already knew that. I was always awful at talking to girls.

"Well Ian, welcome to our home."

I scanned the vast cavern. More people had come into the cavern, news of our arrival had spread. Another person greeted me, and then another. Soon I had met just about everyone. They all were asking questions, talking, welcoming. Surrounded by this happy tumult of human life, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, this could be my home too.


	6. Cleansed

**Disclaimer: Ian is one of the many, many men that isn't mine. By many many I mean the entirety of the male population. But if I weren't single, what would I be doing spending my free time writing fan fiction? Sorry, that was low….but true. If I had an Ian I'd be off watching indie films or classic movies with him in little old theaters that only show one thing at a time, and having Italian takeout on the waterfront, or digging through CD's at a record store, or maybe books at a used book store, going to Laser Muse or Zeppelin, picnicking on the UW quad….yeah, that's why I write fan fiction….here you go. Long one, I promise.**

Cleansed

"So," Ellen said over her shoulder, gesturing at a cave with a threadbare sheet hanging over the opening, "this one's Heidi's. This one's Heath's, this one's Trudy and Geoffry's." As she said the last, she stopped in front of a cave with a quilt over the entrance. She pointed at the next cave down the hall, covered with cardboard.

"That one's Paige and Andy's, and that one's mine," she said, gesturing at a cave covered with a green silk screen. "The last one's empty, but Jeb has decided that you boys might like something a little taller, so he's giving you this one." She turned on her heel to a cave across from the one with the quilt, with an aluminum door resting over the entrance.

"One of the boys brought the door back on the last raid, put it here in case some more people came." She pushed it aside and led us into a cave. It was tall, with about a foot of space above Kyle's head, and he's pretty tall. It was wide too, for a cave. Enough room to move about a bit. Light came in from a maze of cracks. I wondered how that was accomplished without the whole thing caving in, but Ellen seemed to be at ease. She pulled a strand of dirty-blonde hair that had fallen from her ponytail behind her ear, scanning the cave as she did so. "Well, we can bring a few spare cots in here for now, but the next raid, we'll swipe a mattress or two for you. I'll be right back, just have to drop by my cave." She darted out of the cave and down the hall, out of my sight.

I dropped my pack on the ground, and Kyle followed suit. This wasn't exactly a suite at the Plaza, but nor was it a hole in the ground covered with a tarp, which is what Kyle and I were used to sleeping in on the go. I unpacked my posessions, two pairs of faded jeans and three t-shirts, a water bottle, flashlight, sleeping bag, camping pillow, and a small package of things I had brought from home, wrapped in the blanket Mom had made me when I was just a baby. I didn't take the things out of the blanket. Instead I just put them in a corner. I hardly ever unwrapped that blanket, it pulled up too many painful memories. Memories about Jodie, about Mom and Dad, and about…Ellen interrupted my painful train of thought, walking into the cave unannounced.

"All unpacked then? Good. Jeb wants me to take you on a tour. Oh, and bring your flashlight and a change of clothes." I grabbed my flashlight, a pair of jeans, and a red t-shirt, both relatively clean. She smiled and turned out of the room, bouncing a little. She seemed to be that sort of person, bouncy. Not exactly bubbly, but just optimistic. About what I had no idea. The entire human race as we know it was just a handful of people living underground, lucky even to be alive. Kyle and I followed her out of the cave and back down the hall.

Ellen led us through the maze of caves, back through the main cavern with the field and out the other side. We followed her, to the kitchen/mess hall, a pitch-black hole that she called the game room, and through various gardens and halls. She explained the source of the light that brightened all of the caverns except for the game room—apparently Jeb had found this place long before the invasion and prepped it for habitation even then. That sounded like him, paranoid, so crazy he might just not be crazy. The light came from a system of small vents and mirrors that magnified and reflected the actual sun.

"Fascinating," I said as she told us this, working out the complex mirror scheme in my head.

"Yes, for now. Just wait until you have to clean it." I smiled, half in amusement, half in anticipation. I loved physics, this was exactly the kind of thing I had once studied in college. I had been an engineering major, before the invasion. My mind momentarily wandered back to that time, a happier time…

"_Hurry up, Ian!" Kyle called, running ahead of me. I rolled my eyes. Typical Kyle, giving it everything he's got now. I saved my energy, I wasn't going to make a 7 mile jog into a race. Kyle would tire out soon anyways, and then we'd see who'd be telling whom to hurry up. I put on an extra burst of speed anyways, just to catch up with him. A healthy wind blew in from the sound, carrying on it the sharp, clean smell of the ocean. I breathed in deeply, letting the cleansing air into my system. I had been spending too much time inside lately, in classes and in libraries. I was in my sophomore year of college. Kyle had graduated last year with a degree in maximum uselessness (Philosophy) and all sorts of football awards. He was now actually working at a sports store downtown, while vaguely considering going pro. He probably wouldn't—Jodi hated the idea of him playing football, she was always afraid he was going to get seriously hurt, end up in a coma or something. I always told her how funny it was that she thought that Kyle going vegetative was some kind of loss or downgrade. But I secretly agreed. He was a pain in the ass, but he was my big brother. Kyle was tough, but even the toughest get hurt in football. Some have never gotten better. So Kyle, having long been thoroughly whipped by a girl the size of his bicep, Kyle had taken a day job without any real complaint. _

_I, unlike Kyle, had ambitions. Although engineering fascinated me, my heart lay in law. I wanted to help people, and had at first thought I might be interested in medicine. But a professor I had freshman year, Josiah Pierce, had tagged me right away as a lawyer. He was right; I loved logic, reasoning, and debate, the core of litigation. And not corporate law, the leech kind, civil law or criminal law. As cliché as it sounded, I rather liked being the white knight of the put upon. After I got my Bachelors Degree, I wanted to go on to law school, my dream was to attend Harvard, Columbia, Yale, or Stanford, the giants of law education. Yeah, that would probably remain a dream. I'm not exactly rolling in money, and although I get good grades, the fab four are for the best and the brightest. In the end, where you got the JD doesn't matter as much as what you do with it._

_The wind picked up as we jogged along the path towards Alki Beach. Even though the long grayness of winter in the Northwest was now fully upon us, there was promise in the air. I was 19 years old, out of the awkward high school years and starting life as an adult. I had a purpose, and a goal I believed in. Like the path that twisted along the waterfront as far as I could see, everything was ahead of me. _

I snapped out of my reverie as the air around us began to humidify, getting hotter and hotter. A distant babble of murmuring water was coming from ahead of us. The floor had slanted off downwards, hewn into steps. They seemed stable enough, but I placed my hand against the wall for balance as I walked, just to be certain. I soon saw light appear at the end of the tunnel before us, and the murmur of the water increased along with the humidity. The downward climb ended, and we stepped into a wide cavern. The room was as bright as the other caves, though it must be considerably deeper underground. However, the light danced in bright patterns off the walls and ceilings. The cause of this was soon revealed. Two underground rivers ran through the room. One was little more than a stream, running over the rock parallel the other river and into a much darker cave beyond. The other was a steaming, black rush of water, visible through holes in the floor. Heat came off it, distorting the air around it.

"Careful getting near the holes, Jeb says that the floor's not as stable there and if you fall in, you're a goner," Ellen grimaced. "It's never happened that I can think of." She pointed at the dark cave that the stream flowed into. "In there's the bath. It's warm, but not as hot as the river, so go ahead and freshen up...if you want to that is." She looked us up and down. We must be a sorry sight, dirty and disheveled. She was a little dusty herself, but compared to us, pretty clean.

"It's dark in there though, so that's why I had you bring the flashlights. Beyond that, where the stream flows into the ground, is the toilet." She pulled a yellow-green lump with funny looking bits in it out of her bag. "Here's a bar of cactus soap. It stings, so keep it away from your eyes." She beamed the awed face Kyle had as he took the bar of soap from her. Stinging or not, neither of us had used real soap for years. "Do you think you can find your way back to the kitchen?" she asked. Kyle looked befuddled—he had a phenomenally bad sense of direction—but I nodded. Reveries or not, I had the basics of getting around pretty much figured out.

"That's fantastic. Meet me back there when you're done, and I'll take you to the Hospital wing to get you some cots and introduce you to Doc. Then you can settle in, I suppose." She smiled sunnily once more and turned around, jogging a little towards the entrance.

"Wow," Kyle said. It was the first word he had said to me since we got here, and it pretty much summed up all that had been going on. "This place is something else."

I nodded in assent. "I know. I didn't know that life could go on like this these days."

"So, little bro, what do you say we get all clean for Ellen?"

I frowned, confused. "Why would she care?"

Kyle looked at me as if I was some kind of single-celled organism. "Ian, she's totally into you. Did you not notice the way she talked only to you almost the entire time? Or the way she looked at you? Like you're the last man on earth or something."

My frown deepened. "I don't even know her…" I shook it off. It must just be a crush, she'll get over it. I'm not exactly a smooth conversationalist, and most girls don't go for the nerdy bleeding-heart type to begin with. I started walking towards the bathing cave. Kyle followed. "Funny thing," I remarked as we walked, flicking on my flashlight as we entered the dark room. "Until last night, I thought I was the last man on earth. The last human, really." We had reached the pool, and I set down my flashlight and began pulling off my shirt.

"Hey man, what about me?" Kyle whined, already pulling off his jeans.

"Man-ape hybrids don't count, Kyle." I tossed my shirt on the floor and began to pull the belt out of my jeans. He playfully punched my shoulder (playfully here means pretty damn hard, gentle isn't something Kyle has ever done well, except around Jodi) and waded into the water. I left my jeans with my shirt, keeping my boxers on, and took a running jump into the pool.

"Cannonball!" I yelled, laughing. The water splashed up around me, and my head went under. Already I could feel the dirt and stress of years on the run washing away. Here in the warm water, splashing around playfully with my brother, I felt as close to safe and carefree as I had in a long time. The world of running, scavenging, and constant fear seemed far away, if even for a moment.

**Tadaa! Review, tell me about any mistakes or opinions. Unless you don't have anything constructive to say. Then just shut up and either go away or sit tight until something better comes along. And yes, Ian wanted to go to law school. According to me. How amazing is he? In my mind, he's a genius but has no idea, and really no use for his higher education these days, so genius has gone to the wayside. **


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